Ten years ago online advertising mainly consisted of a simple GIF or JPG banner on a webpage. Today, rich media display can include video, audio, animation, games and much more. An increasing number of advertisers are now using rich media to not only engage users but to entertain, educate and encourage online sales through such savvy advertising campaigns.

Although ads still fund websites, display advertising has developed as a crucial part of many businesses budgets.  With the cost of computer dropping massively over the years, more homes and businesses became active online. The internet was set to change and gain momentum as savvy marketers watched online interest grow.

The first banner ad

October 25^th 1994 saw the birth of online display advertising with the first ever online banner being hosted on Hotwired by AT&T. It was called the ‘You Will’ campaign and consisted purely of a banner asking ‘Have you ever clicked your mouse right here?’ and an arrow pointing to the right saying ‘ You Will.’ Although today, that banner would be considered spam as it was a gauging their success through how many users visited their site and actually did click on the banner.

The development of the banner ad

After the success of AT&T’s banner ad on Hotwired, an increasing number of websites made the decision to offer advertising space in order to fund their website. In 1996, the interactive display ad was introduced with HP’s shockwave banner in which you could play the game ‘Pong’ against the banner. Arguably, this was the webs first example of a rich media advert. This was the development of industry changes that are yet to come; the interactive banner was a massive success!

According to Chris Hurwitz, the original guy behind this banner, back in 1997 ‘the normal click through rate on an ad banner is 1.5-2%. The Pong banner is getting 4-8%’.

From this advert, rich media was born and it had been clearly established that is was a success! Within months the internet was becoming flooded with pop-ups, flash, interactive, java, 3d and many more banner ads.

Experimenting with rich media

Despite the growth in banner ads, in the early days, rich media was still very much an experiment.

In an attempt to gain more revenue, publisher increase advertising space on their sites. However, advertisers understandably preferred single ad slots where competition was not rife. Consumers also did not approve of pages that were splashed in irrelevant banners rather than the content they required. This led to websites reducing the number of banner adverts but keeping the spaces for multiple ads on their site.

Creating these ads required a development team with in-depth knowledge of programming. This was also a concern and websites became cautious about hosting many banners in case the below industry standard programming would affect the overall performance of their sites.

There was also the issue with many users still having a slow dial-up internet and experiencing a poor online experience as the large file sizes struggled to load.

Technology developments fuelled the boom

As the web grew, so did technology. Dreary dial-up internet turned into super speed Broadband and computers were built with more ability to handle media loading when a user goes online. By the end of 2004, more than 50% of Internet users were connected online via Broadband; rich media ads became a part of every user’s online experience.

Advertisers now have the ability to track user interactions with their ads including display time, interaction rate, interaction time, expansion time, views and completions, average view time, exit links and much more.

While banners were once used for branding as opposed to direct response or search advertising, they are now becoming much more targeted with the options to refine your audience through demographics, interests and even retarget people who have already visited your site.

What does the future hold?

Many would agree that the web is now a consumer friendly entity. Although it is far more sophisticated that it was in the 90’s, it also offers far more to consumers as well as advertisers with the most effective form of online advertising. With increasing numbers of marketers devoting large budgets to online display advertising, rich Media has developed into an essential part of a marketer’s budget and now represents 25% of on online media consumption.

Now that most industries are also devoting 25-50% of their web display ad impressions to Rich Media, I wonder exactly what is going to be the next development in the future of Display Advertising?

Stay tuned for the latest developments in the world of online advertising!



The Evolution of the Banner is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

This is exactly where Criteo steps in, helping both advertisers and retailers. With so many PPC ads changing daily or adjusting positions, it can be a tedious job remembering or trying to find that one ad that you were happy with and wanted to visit again.

How Does Criteo Work?

Criteo allows brands to continue communication with their users after they have left their site. They provide users with personalized adverts that remind them exactly what they have previously searched for and a simple banner to click on that can take the user directly to the product.

Criteo places large banners across many publisher sites such as hotmail, msn, yahoo and newspaper sites, encouraging the user to go ahead and make their purchase. The ads can offer special promotional prices for users that dropped out during the checkout process, show the exact products that a user searched for or similar or complimentary products that the user may also be interested in.

The banners are only shown to people who have visited your site within the past 30 days; making you message highly targeted, relevant and appealing to a user who should already be familiar with your brand.

Why is Criteo a must for any marketing strategy?

Many marketers do not consider lost prospects; where they may be going instead or why they do not return to their website. Retargeting users once they have left your website should really be a key part of any campaigns conversion strategy. Criteo can play a major part in increasing the number of return visitors to a website and increasing you ROI by focusing on the potential of these customers that could otherwise make their purchase decision elsewhere.

Criteo lets you take control; allowing you to adjust your budgets and bids according to your strategy, success and results. Criteo also takes users away from the traditional CPM models, low conversion rates and high set up costs that other contextual banner providers use. What Criteo brings to the market is a pure CPC model where retailers pay per click; therefore you only pay when a customer is ready to carry on making their purchase decision and each click is an investment a potential customer.

Through serving the right banner to the right person at the right time, Criteo maximises the chances that the viewer will click on the ad and finish their buying cycle there. Through displaying complimentary or similar products to a user, it can also increase the likelihood of a larger basket size.

Not only does Criteo allow advertisers to reengage with previous visitors, it also provides an element of free brand exposure. It enables a brand to gain exposure through a simple CPC model, increasing the chance of word of mouth advertising and potentially brand exposure through shared computers.

Criteo banners are completely customisable and easy to install; a process that can often be lengthy and of a high cost. Not in this case; Criteo cover the entire cost of the design, planning and set up costs.

A Users Point Of View

On Monday evening, I was looking online for bathroom lights and just as I found one that I liked my laptop ran out of battery. After sitting trying to remember what website I was on when I saw the product I wanted to purchase, I remembered Criteo and realised that Criteo could provide me with the answer along the side of my email account!

I personally think that Criteo is a fantastic idea and probably one of the most innovative forms of dynamic personalised advertising. With many brands such as Asos, Office, La Redoute, Lakeland and L’Occitane already making the most of this new form of remarketing, I hope that more and more retailers join Criteo and eventually diminish the number of annoying and irrelevant ads that many online publishers have splattered all over their websites.

The Art Of Personalised Retargeting is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.